BAKERY group Greggs is to create 350 jobs across the region in the next five years as it continues its strategy of opening stores away from the high street.

The Newcastle-based company already has a stronghold in most of the region's high streets, so is looking instead to open in industrial estates and near call centres.

It will invest about £5m over five years to open another 35 outlets.

The company wants to capture the lunchtime market at call centres, business parks and industrial estates that are usually catered for by mobile canteens.

Stephen Turnbull, assistant factory manager of the Greggs production and distribution centre, in Gosforth, Newcastle, said: "We are looking for new sites because we have saturated everywhere in the North-East.

"We are looking towards industrial estates and business parks, places where you might have to drive a couple of miles to get some lunch or something in for tea.

"People might start to see our shops in areas they have not seen them before.

"We are thinking call centres, warehouse, industrial units and commercial offices.

"On every high street there is a Greggs, so now we are looking for areas where we can have new, permanent shops.

"There are a lot of businesses that do not a have staff canteen and people are out on a limb.

"In Scotland, there are Greggs shops on garage forecourts where you can buy every product we do."

Greggs recently opened branches at Newcastle International Airport and on the Team Valley, in Gateshead. It also has an outlet on Doxford International Business Park, in Sunderland.

The new outlets will be supplied from the central distribution centre in Gosforth, which produces bread products, savouries and sweet goods.

The Tyneside group has more than 1,250 outlets in the UK. Its target is to reach sales of £1bn at 1,700 shops by 2010.

The company is also building a £13m factory in North Tyneside to help it meet demand, creating 50 jobs and increasing production of sausage rolls from four million a year to six million.